


The Half Of It

by sarah_writes_stories



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Darcy Lewis, BAMF Women, Canon Divergence - Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Darcyland (Marvel), Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Idiots in Love, Kinda if you squint - Freeform, Like seriously the slowest slow burn, Love at First Sight, Mutual Pining, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Soulmates, Team as Family, Women Being Awesome, Women Who Cuss Like Sailors, hence the rating
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:21:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24269617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarah_writes_stories/pseuds/sarah_writes_stories
Summary: Darcy felt a twinge of…recognition was it? Like something familiar tugging at the insides of her mind before descending to clench around her heart.Ugh. Ridiculous.As soon as the thought was out it made her eyes roll. She scoffed at herself and sat up quickly, straightening her shoulders and trying not to think too hard about the way she’d been leaning towards him on the screen. Clearly her lady bits needed more attention of the male variety. After all, there was no such thing as love at first sight, much less love at first live surveillance stream, no matter what Buzzfeed’s crack team of scientists had to say about it.[Shieldshock. Canon-Divergence. Compliant up to The Winter Soldier. No Ragnarok. No Thanos. No Steve-destroying-the-timeline-Endgame-bullshit because I am not here for that.]
Relationships: Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers, Jane Foster & Darcy Lewis, Jane Foster/Thor
Comments: 36
Kudos: 182





	1. Prologue

_Every sailor knows that the sea_   
_Is a friend made enemy_   
_And every shipwrecked soul knows what it is_   
_To live without intimacy_

_I thought I heard the captain's voice_   
_But it's hard to listen while you preach_   
_Like every broken wave on the shore_   
_This is as far as I could reach_

_Every Breaking Wave - U2_

* * *

##  **Prologue**

_Tromsø, Norway – May 2012_

#### SCIENTISTS SAY LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT IS JUST THE NON-LINEAR RECOGNITION OF EVENTS IN YOUR TIMELINE

Darcy Lewis’ smile was smug, though she hoped not quite so openly full of glee as she currently felt.

She read the headline at the top of her screen again. It was the _perfect_ Buzzfeed clickbait-pseudoscience article headline to torture Jane with.

“Hey, Jane! Hey, Jane! Listen to this!”

Jane Foster waved her hand dismissively at her best friend. She’d spent the past twenty minutes trying to convince the two ”lab techs“ – who were far too muscular to actually be lab techs in her opinion – that they should drop the act and patch her through to everyone’s favourite S.H.I.E.L.D jackboot, Agent Coulson.

“We’ve been here in Norway for over eighteen hours already and not a _single_ person in this lab can tell me what the project actually is that I’m supposed to be consulting on!This can only mean that when Coulson said _‘consulting’_ it was really just his bullshit S.H.I.E.L.D codeword for _‘kidnapping!’_ Now, I want to know why we're _actually_ here in Norway, and I want to know now! It’s time to whip out your spy phones, boys, and let me talk to that shady jerk!”

Darcy was sufficiently impressed. Jane’s ability to give a good anti-establishment diatribe had not faded in the least over the past year. And she was right, of course. Something about this whole trip had started to _Stink_ with a capital S the second they’d landed at the airport.

She should have known better though, what with it having been Coulson himself who’d invited them out to Norway for this top-secret project consult. It shouldn’t have surprised her that they’d been met with a minimally staffed facility filled with ”lab techs” who knew less about astrophysics than Darcy did.

What had concerned her the most, though, was that S.H.I.E.L.D hadn’t even bothered to _try_ and make this farce seem the remotest bit believable. It was almost as though it had been set up in haste, at the last minute... Like they'd needed her and Jane out of the picture as quickly as possible.

But why?

The more Darcy had thought about it, the more she'd realized that there was only one answer to that question: Something _big_ was going on.

“Hey, Jane, did you know that love at first sight is non-linear timeline recognition? Buzzfeed says so!”

“Darcy! I said not…now…” Jane trailed off, a thoughtful look coming into her eyes. “Though that’s actually an interesting hypothesis. Forward me the article.”

Darcy nodded, dutifully pulling up the article’s share function. Good, she thought. The more those two _not_ -lab techs thought she was fucking around on Buzzfeed, the better. She only needed a few more minutes of distraction anyway while her decryption algorithm ran in the background.

Because whatever it was that _was_ going on, Darcy was determined to find out.

Taking advantage of Jane’s momentary distraction, one of the lab tech-slash-agents had been trying to inch toward the door...but Jane wasn’t having it.

”Hey you! Don’t you dare try slinking off to report back to your superiors! I still don’t know why the hell I’m here in Norway! And, so help me, if you don’t patch me through to Coulson right now I’m gonna––”

Jane, for her part, was blissfully oblivious to Darcy's treasonous felony attempts, and she needed to keep her that way for…just…a few…more…

_..._

_HOLY SHIT._

“Jane!”

There must have been an edge to Darcy’s voice that had Jane’s attention snap to her immediately. “What? What is it?”

“Get your ass over here and take a look at this!”

Jane immediately bolted over to where Darcy sat behind one of the computer stations in the lab, their two "lab tech" agents close on her heels.

“What is it? What’s going... Holy hell!” Jane’s eyes settled on the screen where Darcy had pulled up the live surveillance feed.

A battle was happening in New York City.

“You– You’re not supposed to have access to that!” The shock in the voice of the shorter, stockier of the two faux-lab techs made Darcy roll her eyes.

“Why? Because of your little firewall and security protocols? How lame do you think we are?”

“You need to turn that––“ It was the taller of the two this time, trying to step forward. Jane snapped her head around to him with a glare. “Back the fuck up!” She snarled and the agent stopped in his tracks.

Jane turned her eyes back to the screen, face riddled with confusion. “Is that… _Thor?!_ What...? When did this _happen?”_

Wide-eyed, Darcy turned toward Jane. “It’s happening right now. This is the live feed channel from S.H.I.E.L.D's surveillance drones in New York.”

Jane spun on the men in the room. “I was _right!_ This IS some bullshit S.H.I.E.L.D operation, isn’t it? You knew this was coming and wanted me out of the way! Now one of you asshats better get Coulson on the phone in the next five minutes or Darcy and I will be marching back to the airport to get on the next nonstop flight to New York!”

The two men looked at each other, resignation settling over their features. The shorter, stalkier man was the one who finally spoke. “You two will have to remain here while we make contact.”

It was better than nothing and Jane gave him a terse nod before returning her eyes to the screen. The two men left the women alone in the otherwise empty lab to watch the battle unfold.

There were maybe five… no six of them in total that the drones were watching on the ground in New York: several men and one woman. The feed intermittently switched between drone cameras, rotating focus amongst the six of them.

"Is that Bruce Banner?" Jane's voice was confused and Darcy knew why. Everyone in Culver's science department whispered about what had happened to Erik's friend, Dr. Banner. But then the screen changed again as a drone focused its camera on the sky above Stark Tower.

“Forget Banner! Are those legit _aliens?!”_ Darcy’s pitch ratcheted up as realization hit.

The camera switched again and Darcy tried to rein in her panic. She studied the faces of the six people that the drones were monitoring, trying to figure out who the others were and how they could possibly stand against an entire army. Thor, Banner and Ironman, she recognized, but that dude with the fancy bow looked…

“Shit! Jane, that’s one of the agents from New Mexico! The one with the bow, isn’t it?”

Jane looked unsure. “Uh, I think so? I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff. You know that.”

Darcy rolled her eyes. She _did_ know that and so she looked again at the screen. The last two in the group appeared to be a red-headed woman she'd never seen before and…

“Okay, what the foosballs. This _has_ to be a prank. I mean that dude is dressed up like an old-timey Captain America!” Darcy practically guffawed when she finally recognized the costume the last man was wearing.

But then the fighting broke out in earnest and Darcy watched as this _Captain_ ran and jumped across the tops of cars at incredible speed, deflecting laser blasts with his iconic shield before throwing it to take out two footsoldiers and expertly catching it on the rebound.

Her laughter died immediately.

So, clearly, it _wasn't_ a joke. This was really happening and it was definitely just the six of them standing against an invading army that was currently raining down from a hole in the sky.

What the fuck had her world become when _that_ was an actual sentence?

The two women lost track of time. Hands grasped and fingers threaded together, neither of them spoke as they watched what felt like a never-ending battle unfold.

Whoever this Captain America was, it was clear that he was fast and strong…like Thor-level fast and strong, though Darcy wasn’t sure how that could be possible. At one point he and Thor found themselves surrounded in the street, guarding each other’s backs against the advancing horde.

Kinda like her and Jane, Darcy thought with a small smile.

But the smile fell away and her breath hitched when the Captain took an energy weapon blast to the stomach, knocking him off his feet. His helmet – or was it a mask? – had come off by that point, and Darcy suddenly got a good look at his face.

“He’s so young!” She hadn’t realized she’d voiced that thought aloud until Jane hummed an affirmative sound in response.

But seriously, though. He couldn’t have been more than a year or two older than her and yet there he was holding back an alien army that was clearly bent on taking over the world.

Darcy remembered the deep, gut-churning fear she’d felt during the Destroyer’s rampage. She wondered, when he'd gone down, if the Captain had been afraid, too?

As if sensing her thoughts, the man in question swung his eyes toward the surveillance drone and, for a moment, Darcy could have sworn that he was staring straight at her. His eyes were impossibly blue...but they were also flinty and filled with equal parts righteous anger and determination.

It was then that Darcy felt a twinge of…recognition was it? Like something familiar tugging at the insides of her mind before descending to clench around her heart.

_Ugh. Ridiculous._

As soon as the thought was out it made her eyes roll. She scoffed at herself and sat up quickly, straightening her shoulders and trying not to think too hard about the way she’d been leaning towards him on the screen. Clearly her lady bits needed more attention of the male variety. Maybe she could convince Jane to let her hire a new intern, someone easy on the eyes.

After all, there was no such thing as love at first sight, much less love at first live surveillance stream, no matter _what_ Buzzfeed’s crack team of scientists had to say about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is 1000% inspired by [**this article**](https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/time-is-created-by-the-observer-argues-new-research). And it's probably gonna be long-ass long.
> 
> Also, I own nothing. Obviously.


	2. Bring Them Home

_I am a lone wolf_  
_A beauty and a beast_  
_Both hunter and hunted_  
_Soft tongue and sharp teeth_

_Help me figure this out_  
_Help me figure you in_  
_You're a shadow to me_  
_That I echo when I sing_

_Such a Common Bird – Wendy McNeill_

* * *

##  **Bring Them Home**

_Avengers Tower, New York City - June 2014_

Steve was tired.

It had been two weeks since S.H.I.E.L.D had fallen.  
Two weeks since Natasha had told the suits on Capitol Hill to shove it where the sun don’t shine.  
Two weeks since he’d decided he was going after Bucky.

And so here he sat, in Tony’s penthouse lounge, about to have one of those hard conversations about what came next.

“You want a beer, Cap?”

Steve looked up, pulled from his thoughts by Tony’s voice. There was an unexpected look of concern on his friend’s face, one he rarely saw.

“Wouldn’t do me any good, Tony. You know that.”

Tony walked over to the bar. “No one’s suggesting you try to get wasted, old man. It’s just something to drink while we wait for–“

There was a small rumble of thunder in the distance. It was enough to have both men looking towards the glass doors that led out onto the terrace in time to see Thor land. Steve rose from his chair, walking out onto the terrace with Tony.

”Friends,” came Thor’s booming voice, “it is good to see you both again!”

Steve held out his hand and clasped Thor’s wrist when the taller man took his. “Thor, thank you for coming.”

“Alright, alright. Enough of this mushy reunion crap! We’ve got shit to sort out and the sooner we get on with it the better.” Tony smirked as he too held out his hand to the Asgardian, clasping it briefly before leading the way back into the building.

“Take a load off, ladies. We’re gonna be here for a while.” Tony motioned towards the couches for Steve and Thor to take a seat before he retrieved a bottle of scotch and three glasses from the bar. He poured each man a good three fingers of scotch and then settled himself into one of the leather armchairs.

After that? Silence. A long moment of it stretched taught between them. Each man knew what needed to be discussed, but none of them were quite sure how or where to start.

Eventually, it was too much for Tony. He fidgeted restlessly in his seat before finally asking, “How much do you know about what’s happened, Blondie?”

“Only what you have told me from our telephone conversations and what I have seen on the news.” Thor’s lips quirk upward in a rueful smile. “But I am not so foolish, Stark, as to think that is the whole of it.”

Tony turned to Steve then. “Cap, you wanna share what you know with the rest of the class?”

Steve sighed heavily, feeling even more tired than before. He took a large gulp of his scotch and then began. His words were succinct and precise, as though he were giving a mission debrief. It made it easier for him to relive it in his memory. Easier to separate himself and his emotions from the events that had led up to the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D.

When he was done, silence again hung heavy in the room.

He sat back in his chair, finger and thumb coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose before rubbing against his eyes. “Natasha’s in the wind for now though I’m sure that, once she’s ready, this is where she’ll come. Clint, too. Sam Wilson and I will likely be coming and going a lot for the next little while. There’s something I gotta do.”

“You shall be seeking your friend Bucky.” Thor’s words were a statement, not a question. Steve exhaled shakily and gave a short nod.

“I’m hoping that the trail won’t run cold, but I’m worried that we won’t find him if he doesn’t want to be found.”

“Do you need my assistance?”

Steve shakes his head. “No, that’s not why we asked you to come, Thor.”

Tony took his own large gulp of scotch. “S.H.I.E.L.D may have started the Avengers Initiative but, especially now, there’s no way we can let it go down with the ship.”

Steve had heard this argument from Tony several times this week already. “Tony, that’s not why I thought we asked him here either. I still don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“They’re gonna need us, Cap. You know it as well as I do. Now more than ever. Fury’s out there hunting HYDRA in the shadows, but we need to be the ones to do it in the light, where the people can see that we’re still the good guys, that we’re still fighting for what’s right.”

Tony got up and started pacing, unable – or unwilling – to contain his agitation any longer. His voice was tight. ”Thor, with HYDRA still out there, every single name on the Project Insight list is still a target, and there were _thousands_ of names on that list. Hell, we were _all_ on that list: you, me, Rogers. All of the Avengers…” He stopped his pacing long enough to level the Asgardian with a pointed look. “Along with everyone who’s _close_ to any of us.”

Thor exhaled heavily, leaning back in his seat, understanding finally dawning across his features. “Ah…and so we have come to the crux of it.”

Tony nodded, resuming his pacing. “And now that the list is floating around on the internet, everything is pretty fucked up. We _can’t_ just walk away from this, especially since there is zero doubt in my mind that HYDRA are the ones that made off with Loki’s glow stick. I’ve convinced Maria Hill to come aboard with Stark Industries as intelligence liaison. I want her to be the buffer between us and Washington until we’ve tracked down every last HYDRA base and have the sceptre back where it can’t mind-fuck anyone ever again. Hill’s agreed, but she said there were some _things_ she still needed to tell us.”

Steve gave Tony a questioning look. _“Things?_ What kind of _things?”_

“Who the fuck knows, Cap. She’s a _spy._ It could be almost anything. She may want to tell us the moon is _actually_ made of cheese for all I know. She refused to go into any more detail until we’re all face to face.”

Tony flopped back into his chair, reaching forward to pour more scotch into his now empty glass. “In the meantime, we do what we gotta do. We round up the fam, bring everybody in…Or as many as we can get, at least. Pepper’s closing up the Malibu house as we speak.”

Thor looked from Tony to Steve. “And you Captain? Is there anyone you shall be securing within the tower walls?”

Steve’s eyes shift to the side before he nods. “A…friend. Peggy Carter. She was one of the founders of S.H.I.E.L.D and likely has a huge target on her back, despite the fact that she’s 93 years old. Her great-niece Sharon was with us at S.H.I.E.L.D, but she’s headed for the CIA now. I talked with her and she’s agreed to let me bring Peggy in. There are several residential floors in the building and Tony’s been good enough to agree to set Peggy up with a private nurse in her own suite.”

Tony looked at Steve askance. “You make that sound like I needed you to twist my arm, Rogers. You forget Aunt Peg and my father were S.H.I.E.L.D-founding besties?”

Steve blinked at Tony for a moment. Sometimes he did forget. Forget that Tony was Howard’s son. Forget that they’d all had a life…decades together…that he knew almost nothing about.

Attempting to divert from that train of thought, Steve turned to Thor, “What about your lady friend, Thor? Jane? Is that her name? The astronomer?”

“Astrophysicist, actually... But are we sure she is in danger?” The thought of it furrowed Thor’s brow in concern.

Tony didn’t miss a beat. “JARVIS? Search the S.H.I.E.L.D data dump for mentions of Dr. Jane Foster and her work. How many are there?”

“There are 5,729 mentions of Dr. Foster or her work, sir.”

Thor’s brows shot up in surprise at that. ”And what of Erik and Darcy, friend JARVIS?”

“Dr. Erik Selvig is mentioned 10,374 times and Ms. Darcy Lewis is mentioned 1,821 times, Prince Thor.”

Thor exhaled heavily, processing this.

Steve wasn’t sure why, but that name caught his attention. “Who’s Darcy Lewis?”

At the question, Thor’s dark look of worry cleared somewhat, replaced by a small smile. “The Lady Darcy is my lightning sister. She is a most fearsome warrior, as well as protector and true friend to my Lady Jane. She assists her in her work and research and has travelled with her from New Mexico, where we first met, to London, where Jane’s lab now resides.”

Tony looked up from where he’d been swirling his scotch in his glass. “Lightening sister? Is she another Asgardian we should know about?”

Thor looked momentarily uncomfortable. His eyes shifted away to the side. “Nay, Lady Darcy is not of Asgard.”

Tony knew evasive when he saw it. He narrowed his eyes at Thor. “What aren’t you telling us, Point Break? If she’s not Asgardian, what makes her your lightening sister?”

Thor cleared his throat. “Well, as you know, when I first arrived here on Midgard, I had been stripped of my power thanks to Loki’s trickery and my own foolish pride.” The two men nodded, urging him to continue.

“When I arrived I was…ahem…not myself. Highly agitated. How did Lady Darcy put it?” He paused as if trying to remember. “She deemed me to be, in her words, _‘Freaking the fuck out,’_ and so in order to protect herself and my Lady Jane from possible harm she utilized a small lightening device in order to subdue me.” Thor mumbled out the last few words as if in embarrassment.

Steve and Tony blinked at Thor and then looked at each other for a long moment while the Asgardian was left to shift uncomfortably in his seat.

Tony finally let out a snort of disbelief, his eyes downright gleeful. “I’m sorry… _what?“_

“Did you not hear my words, friend Stark?”

Tony laughed. “Oh, no, I heard them, I’m just… Blondie, are you telling me that this Darcy woman… _tasered_ you?”

Thor nodded slowly. “Yes, I believe that is the correct name for her lightening device. Yes.”

Tony couldn’t hold back the barks of laughter then, and Steve felt the need to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from also laughing at his friend’s expense.

Tony had no such qualms, however. His grin was still wide when he continued. “Okay, okay, I gotta ask: were those her exact words? To your face? She told you she tasered you because you were _‘freaking the fuck out’?”_ He used air quotes to emphasize the phrase.

Thor eyed Tony warily. “Aye….?”

Tony’s grin turned downright shit-eating. “Ooh, I like her already. JARVIS, pull up a photo and bio for this woman. I need to see the chick who had the balls to–” A small holographic image appeared, hovering over Tony’s wristwatch and his eyes bugged out slightly.

“Holy mother of stacked!”

“Tony!” A flash of fury ripped through Steve at the inappropriate comment, and the reprimand in his voice was sharp, sending the billionaire a quelling look.

Tony was all innocence. “What?”

Steve blinked twice, the feeling dissipating as quickly as it came over him. He wasn’t sure why Tony’s usual antics were getting under his skin all of a sudden. He shook his head and let it go.

Or rather, he almost did.

“I do not understand this phrase. _’Mother of stacked’?”_ Thor’s eyes shifted between the two men, a look of wary confusion on his face.

Tony stayed silent, looking like the cat who’d eaten the canary, and Steve knew full well that he wasn’t going to explain himself to Thor.

_Damnit._

“Tony is being an ass, Thor. He’s…um…referring to your friend’s…ahem…feminine _assets.”_

Steve shifted uncomfortably in his seat, eyes sliding off to the side, and Thor understood immediately, wheeling on Tony.

“Understand me well, friend Stark. If I am able to convince the Ladies Jane and Darcy to dwell within this tower, you are in _no way_ to approach Lady Darcy in such a lascivious manner! She is a warrior deserving of your respect. Had it not been for her assistance we would not have been able to defeat Malekith in London last year. More than once has she put herself in mortal peril in service of your world and you will not reduce her to anything less than the friend and warrior that she is. As I said, I consider her my lightening sister, and you would do well to remember that.”

Thor’s steely words had Steve’s curiosity piqued, though he’d never be so overt as to get up from his seat to try to get a look at the image of the woman still hovering over Tony’s wrist. Instead, he tried to imagine what this woman could possibly look like… Someone who cussed like a Howlie, took down an Asgardian with a taser, and helped to save the world.

The more he thought about it, the less he could stop the small smirk that curled up the edges of his mouth. She sounded like one ballsy dame, and he had no doubt that she and Natasha would probably end up thick as thieves.

Tony held his hands up, palms out, though the rueful smirk on his face looked anything but contrite… Not that Thor or Steve ever thought he would be.

“Alright already, Blondie. No need to get your codpiece in a twist. I guess that settles that. You can go ahead and bring Jane and Selvig and this Darcy chick home to the tower. We’ll find them all a place in the SI labs… We’ll keep ‘em safe.”

_Safe._

The word felt good as it settled in Steve’s chest…and really he was just too tired to bother questioning why that was.


End file.
